On display is a selection of the artist’s works known as the Abakans, towering textile structures suspended from the gallery ceiling that made Abakanowicz famous six decades ago.
The Tate Modern writes on its website that the "radical form and format" of the Abakans "revolutionised sculpture art and pioneered a new form of installation when they first appeared in the late 1960s."
The gallery adds: “Many of the most significant Abakans will be brought together in a forest-like display in the 64-metre long gallery space of the Blavatnik Building at Tate Modern … With these works she brought soft, fibrous forms into a new relationship with sculpture. A selection of early textile pieces and her little-known drawings are also on show."
Born in 1930, Abakanowicz was one of Poland’s most renowned visual artists. She had more than 100 individual exhibitions, and her work is now in the collections of some 120 museums and private galleries, including the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
She won the Gold Medal at the São Paulo Art Biennale in 1965.
She died in 2017 at the age of 86.
Magdalena Abakanowicz. Photo: PAP/Grzegorz Momot
The exhibition at the Tate Modern runs until May 21.
The Times art critic Rachel Campbell-Johnston described Abakanowicz's art as "bewitching" and her central installation at the show as "mesmerising."
(mk/gs)
